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World Building Session 05
Back to the Episode list. Timestamps are for the Twitch Vod !Adams Youtube |- | |'Adams Twitch' |} Was House Crux always a Major House in terms of the Major/Minor house divide? (0:03:18) * The division between Major/Minor is a relatively new-ish thing, in terms of the timeline. * Only recently a formal division. * Used to be based on how influential, real-estate, contributions to GDP, all that stuff. * Probably became formal after Blood Eagle. * Probably pushed by Eridanus. * Not sure if Crux was always Major, but Crux has always considered itself to be a Major. * Has always been a pillar though. How extensive was the Crux purge of Triangulum's VI/AI scientists and was it brought about by perceived disloyalty from Triangulum? (0:05:30) * Depends how closely they were to Cygnus? * Those closest * Not necessarily a purge in the Pol Pot sense, but more of a Soviet Russia kind of purge. * Early on in the Crux Crusade, many Triangulum helped Crux by sharing technology to prove loyalty. * Triangles are not former nazi-scientists, but they didn't want to get purged. * Not so much about perceived disloyalty. * Triangulum probably had some naivety about the uses of their research. * Politics got in the way, now Triangulum has to pick regimes/adapt to regime change. * More politics scientists jumped on board real quickly, those who didn't might have gotten purged. * Just because something is maltech doesn't mean Triangulum is not doing it. They just have to it on the DL. * Some Triangulum: This thing with Crux/Cygnus is bad for science. To the UPC/Vagrant/etc, for Science! * Crux was really: Join us or die. * War divided Triangulum (and people more generally) in a significant way: How important is my research to humanity? How much do I have to play the politics game? * People in Acheron Rho will always have to balance the importance of their own portfolios vs the course of humanity as a whole. * Now is the time of purges, process is still ongoing. We're still "cleaning up" until there is a new Emperox. What is your opinion on the food that all the factions have been putting up. I know you've been using Fizzy Cheese already, but how likely will it be that foods will be appearing in other episodes? (0:12:58) * Food is a good way to show culture, or lack thereof. * Hong Lu is a huge cultural force for language/music/food because there is such a big population. * Stuff gets exported that way. * Lot of Dim Sum, Vietnamese, Thai cuisine, Indian influence. * On top of that: A.C.R.E. * ACRE is the MacDonalds of the universe. You will always find Fizzy Cheese everywhere ACRE has a presence. * All set pieces are relevant: chose Fizzy Cheese for the Fizzy Cheese opportunity. * Adam will continue to look at the wiki for little things to include when they are the right note for the tone. * Food and music and little cultural things are really important to the setting. * Fornax probably has a deep barbecue culture. Is there an Imperial Fleet, and if so are they still around? (0:15:35) * Oh boy, is there! Topic of high conversation, it comes up a lot. * It's massive, tons of good stuff, but it's just hanging out in the spaceyards of Imperial Prime. * Gen or two old, with tons of good stuff that no one can touch. * Every day someone suggests using it for some purpose. * Everybody wants it, no one trusts anyone else to use it. * Whoever gets it, becomes a big deal in the Empire. * Everyone's political aim is to get their grubby mitts on the Imperial Fleet. * Loaded gun in the middle of the table. * Everyone has agreed to make sure no one else gets it. * Dangerous and powerful asset. * Codes are locked away in some Imperial Vault, all Houses must agree on new Emperox is so that it can be opened. * Maybe signet ring of all House leaders. Nobody has current access. * Post Imperial election is phase 2 of the game. Whole lore stream just on what they find. * Secrets of the universe revealed to whichever faction gets it. * Cygnus Codes ended up somewhere, maybe the Church? No one knows for sure. * But when the vote is made, the vote is made. Chosen House gets it. * Maybe it's empty? How advanced is VR in Acheron Rho? Do you plug into a virtual realm with all our senses, or more like what we have now with a headset? (0:20:18) * Adam's aesthetic choice: I think there's no kind of big virtual reality. * If you say we have this fully formed cyber realm, it bring up questions about reality and cyberpunk stuff. * Adam wants to avoid those kinds of question. * VR just didn't get developed maturely in this realm, it was abandoned as unfruitful. * In this universe we have more Augmented Reality. Stuff like flight simulation machine. * No brain-machine interface, no rigging. Not a thing in this universe. Adam doesn't want to get into it. * There's still goggles and gloves, but not so evolved as even what 80's cyberpunk has. * Even a holodeck is too much. * Obvious holograms e.g. Cortana, Minority Report only. That stuff is love. Motion sensitive heads-up displays. * Anywhere in the book that relies on direct brain interface, bad. Find another way to make it work. * Tony Stark UI is where things in Acheron Rho have gone. * Blade Runner 2049 - big holograms. Transparent people. * Psitech - using amplified psychic ability to project images into people's brains - that is okay. * Effing with people's brains is fine, things that mess with what you see. * Psitech can do this, to make it more impactful. * Deep VR bad, don't go there in Far Verona. * May be exceptions, Triangulum may be trying, but they are underfunded and are just Guild fanboys. * Guild is about big realities. How do you foresee the sector's labour shortage affecting the depiction of various locales? For example, Tiber's production of tropical commodities has fallen drastically because of lack of synths to harvest them by hand. (0:25:40) * Adam and House Eridanus need to do some research on how real-life labour shortages work. * A free labour class did all this skilled work. * Mass production and automation was really not developed, except for stuff that humans can't really do. * Moved away from mass production because we have the synths. * Synth car artisans "cartisans" who are genetically superhumans would sculpt these things perfectly. * We had billions of these synths, and now they are all gone. We're all worse for it. * Maybe look into Black Death. * Serfs are kind of filling that space, but the economy is all effed up right now. * I don't know if we have a modern example of this. * Gotta do some research. * The technical knowledge wasn't lost. This isn't Fall of Rome. We just don't have enough people to do the work. * It's a whole thing we gotta figure out together. Now that the Discord Dogs have been working on it, how do you think the charity is generally perceived across Acheron Rho? In the common knowledge do most people think they're legit, or do think most people know what's going on but don't say anything? (0:29:30) * Depends where you live and who's telling you information. * On Hong Lu the 14 Red Dogs are probably seen very heroically. * House Cygnus sucks, they are liberators, they are great. Making sure we gets meds and food. * Most people on Hong Lu think Red Dogs are great, even if they're selling heroin to your grandma. * They're getting things done and they are better than the last guy. * Cygnus overpopulated it to build the Synths and Synth factories. * But Cygnus had to fight with Crux, and Red Dogs got rid of Cygnus Hong Lu. * Opportunity for Red Dogs to turn over a new leaf and be benevolent overlords. * But also Militia/Junta thing going on that are trying to seize power (Liberty Brigade) * Juntas are woven in with the Red Dogs, but are kind of a separate group from the Red Dogs. * For those outside, they probably see all Hong Luans as the same. * Some people think it's a Vagrancy Conspiracy. * Some people think they are uppity colonists that Crux will see to in time. * Depends where you're getting your news. * PRISM portrays Hong Lu monolithically to outsiders. So most people don't know who the Red Dogs are. * But how obvious/successful the charity vs criminal front is, depends on how they are portrayed. * Definitely an opportunity to negotiate and become a protectorate. * Maybe pay "massive taxes" and become a semi-autonomous state? * There may come a reckoning/reclamation from the Empire? * Hong Lu's future hangs in the balance, a lot up to Red Dogs. * Who's going to pay all those back taxes? There's a lot going on there politically. * Look at the history of Vietnam or China in the 30s or colonization/decolonization for inspiration. * On Hong Lu, life is cheap and powerful. But it has tons of manufacturing infrastructure. * How useful Hong Lu is depends on how the Synth question is handled. * If Triangulum makes faceless/genders Synth LiteTM, then Hong Lu becomes incredibly valuable. * Gats got bombed, no infrastructure is left. So Hong Lu is potentially a big thing. * Maybe Hong Lu pays off its debts over 10 years, and then operate as a protectorate. * If there is a Synth uprising or something, Hong Lu could be seen as an incredibly valuable place. * In Far Verona Act 2, this could all change. There may be new factions. Lots can change; Adam will do stuff. How do the clergy fit into society in terms of how they are viewed by nobility? Are they viewed in the three categories of Noble, Serf, AND Clergy or is the Clergy seen as integrated into the Noble/Serf distinction? (0:39:15) * It's complicated. * Adam references this diagram. * So what we've got is this "Chain" of being: Almighty God at top, non-humans at bottom. * //Adam explains the diagram. * High Church is to the side, it's a weird place between the Emperox and the Houses Noble. But to the side. * Clergy fit into weird place organizationally, but don't fit in. * Clergy may be more or less important than any noble or serf. * Space Pope is more important than any given noble, or even noble house In Terms of Spiritual Influence. * God to Emperox, Emperox to Church. That's pretty swag. * There are lay people, monks, etc. They are not seen as very important. * But if a Crux noble had to shoot a monk or a peasant, they'd shoot the peasant every time. * It's bad form to be rude to or hurt the priest. High Church can get away with stuff because of this. * Great illusion: we pretend that being a monk or priest separates us from our birth. * But really, everyone remembers where you were from, and that's going to change attitudes. * CHR is even more complicated. We'll talk about them in a minute. How much biotech is exclusive to Trilliant? (0:45:37) * Adam gets these questions a lot. Each Houses asks about other people's stuff a lot. * Think about it this way: everybody has their portfolio, stuff they are good at. * If you have Tech Level 4, you can make any TL4 thing. If you have TL5, you can make TL5 thing. * But everything is collaboration. * Triangulum could make a really good gun, but it doesn't match those of Reticulum. * No one will make things as good as the House that specializes in that. * There is a certain social and artisanal cache that comes with something being in your portfolio. * Trilliant's thing is making nobles live forever, and selling thing to nobles so they can "be baller forever". * Can't be as luxe as Trilliant, but Triangulum can still make biotech. * It's not a hard division. * ACRE makes basically everything, up to a certain level. * ACRE makes literally EVERYTHING, however, the best ACRE thing cannot reach the levels of artistry of the hyper-specialized noble classes. * ACRE's gonna make you 10 million pistols that are fine. Reticulum is going to make you one pistol that is perfect. But this is all based on tech level (these are constraints). How much of a social stigma would you imagine there to be for nobles of the major and minor houses who are CHR followers over the High Church? (0:49:42) * Less than you'd think. * Adam can't give you numbers on % shares across the sector, but can tell you about the feel. * CHR is not a cult or weird splinter religion. * CHR is mid-1600's: HC -> Catholicism but CHR -> Protestantism. Think Reformation times. * CHR is a legitimate religion. Not High Church big, but they are stuff, planets all to their own. * Dependent on your faction and family, but CHR is gaining a lot of steam. * High Church has tons of secular power that CHR doesn't have. * But CHR has social power and momentum. * Average noble/serf/whatever is getting sick of all the war. * Wants to enjoy Fizzy Cheese in peace. * CHR says we have made bloody mistakes in the past, so let's stop making those. This resonates. * Each House has their own angle on this. Stigma varies. Super varies. How much do have to appease the High Church? Do all weddings have to be passed by them, or do we have a Humanity Repentant officiant to have it legally recognized? In the same question, can the High Church just turn around and say someone isn't a noble anymore? (0:53:48) * Right now, CHR is not the state religion. Technically, a marriage from CHR is not a legal marriage. * There isn't a secular group that imbues this power. * If a CHR priest blesses your wedding, someone *could* eff with you and not permit it. * In the Empire at large, the High Church has a function as part of the state. * Right now, the High Church could excommunicate someone. But they need to use this power carefully. * They need to able to justify it, and they don't happen very often. * They are likely caused by careful political maneuvering. * They basically strip someone of all rights, they can be murdered. They have no legal capacity to fight back. * ALL of House Cygnus was excommunicated. * The High Church did this so Crux could mess with them. These were no longer "people" anymore. * Just about every House got their hands on some Cygnus stuff, it was up for grabs. It was legal. * Eridanus probably benefited from this the most. They probably moved some spreadsheets around. * Cygnus defaulted on all their debt, and instant repo. * Eridanus has the paperwork for who owns Gats now. It's free real-estate. How present are the different factions on Imperial planets? Are there temples of both churches, Crux police stations, Aquila recruitment offices, Serpens clinics, PRISM radio stations, ACRE supermarkets on each Imperial planet? (0:59:49) * Yeah, you're all one glorious country. On the surface, y'all get along. * Totally! * You all have your homeworlds, but you have citizens everywhere. * Technically, a member of house here can live anywhere. * You're all citizens of the same interplanetary organization, i.e. The Empire. * Even Lodestone, but probably less so because there isn't much to get there. //And nerds live there. How much access does Triangulum have to pretech artifacts, not meaning TL5 tech? (1:01:56) * Next to none! * That stuff is INCREDIBLY RARE. * Pretend you don't have access to any of that "supertech". Let me Adam show off that stuff in the show. * Teleporters not really a thing. * Assume that "Magitech" stuff, the Guild has that stuff. * Maybe they leave it on the side of the road and you pick it up. But it's as likely to mess you up than do something useful. Category:Lore Category:History